all my experiences and problems with kubuntu so far

Tue Apr 12 02:36:31 UTC 2005

On Monday 11 April 2005 21:40, Sander van Loon wrote:
> First of all, I'd like to thank the (K)Ubuntu developers for their
> work. It's a nice distro, but in the three days that I'm using it
> I've encountered tons of problems.
> I think that it would be a good idea to start a Kubuntu counterpart
> of ubuntuguide.org. For example to explain how we need to install the
> windows codecs for kaffeine, flash for konqueror and such things. Is
> such a thing already in the works?

If they are not to be found in multi/universe, you can always go with:
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ testing main

> I've written a long story about my experiences with Kubuntu. I don't
> know who are to “blame” for the many bugs I describe here, the
> Kubuntu team or KDE. I think it's both, so I'll post this here and in
> the KDE bugzilla/mailinglists as well. 
> I hope the Kubuntu developers 
> check this forum, or do I have to post in some mailinglist then?
>
>
>
> Installation
>
> The installation could be easier with a GUI. Most of the other
> distro's have a Gui installer by now, but Kubuntu still uses a text
> based one. Not that I had much problems, but I this scares of
> newbies.

Well, it shouldn't. The Ubuntu installer (d-i) is not going to be easier 
just because of af GUI. d-i is very, very easy as it is.

> I also noticed a bug in the installer, when I wanted to select my
> keyboard layout, I was looking for “Dutch” in the alphabettically
> sorted list. I was looking near the “D”, but I didn't found it there.
> So I scrolled down to the “N” for “Netherlands”, and there I found
> “Dutch” between “Norwegian and Polish”.

Probably worthy of an entry in bugzilla.ubuntu.com

> After that I had to do the partitioning. Maybe it would be a good
> idea to let the installer do this automatically? Please at least let
> it recognize the partitions of already installed Linux distro's.

Partitioning can be done automatically if you let it take over the 
entire disk, but, yes, it may lack a bit compared to other installers 
in that respect (not 100% sure of this - I never multiboot between 
distros).

> I had Fedora Core 3 installed, but I had to manually edit the
> partitioning scheme so it would use those partitions. Maybe it would
> also be possible to implement the resizing of NTFS partitions, like
> the SuSE Linux installer?

NTFS resizing can be done already. From memory: select the NTFS 
partition and select "size". Now you can choose to shrink it.

> After the base system was installed, I had to type my user name. I
> typed some letters, pressed Backspace because I made an error, I kept
> Shift pressed because I wanted to type a capital letter, and then the
> installer froze. It didn't respond to anything, except
> Ctrl+Alt+Delete for a reboot. I had to install a second time, but now
> everything went fine, fortunately.

Sounds odd. If you can find a way to reproduce this, you should 
definitely file a bug report about it (well, maybe file one under any 
circumstances, but then there's not too much to go after).

> amaroK
>
> amaroK freezes when I try to play a stream, a winamp .pls file. I had
> this problem when I tried to play the stream of
> http://addictivebeat.com/ I haven't tried any other streams though.

I can confirm that 'amarok http://addictivebeat.com' will freeze amarok 
and eat 100% CPU. Worthy of a bug report.

Using 'amarok http://addictivebeat.com/128k.ram' makes amarok connect to 
the stream and it also says "Playing..." - but nothing happens, no 
sound, no nothing.

> Enemy Territory
[ snip ]
Can't help with that one.

> Another thing which is driving me mad is the permissions. I noticed I
> didn't have the permission to write to /.etwolf in my users home dir
> because I couldn't edit my config file! If that directory is
> installed in my home dir I'd expect that root wouldn't be the owner.
> I installed ET with sudo sh et-linux-2.60.x86.run, could be that the
> cause of the strange permissions?

Yes, if you used sudo, the installer will run and install files as root. 
Try without sudo. Sudo should definitely not be necessary for 
installing ET in your homedir.

> On Fedora I used su, gave my 
> password and then used the same command, and with Fedora I didn't
> have any problems with permissions.
>
> Fonts
>
> After installing I installed a font, I could use it in OpenOffice,
> but I could not use it in the KDE Control Center. After I rebooted
> they did appear in the Kde Control Center and they were usable. Why
> is it not mentioned that you have to reboot first then?

A reboot should not be necessary (but some other action apparently is - 
and that particular action just happens to have been executed as part 
of a reboot).

> Fonts anti aliasing
>
> With anti aliasing on my fonts don't look very good. Check this
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~vanlonen/antialiasing.png screenie. Look
> carefully and you'll see that in Konqueror, the “W” in “Window” is
> very pixelated. It looks like this everywhere in all KDE apps. But in
> the OpenOffice window, the fonts are perfect, and the “W” is not
> pixelated. So anti aliasing doesn't work very well in KDE, but in
> non-KDE apps like OpenOffice it does work?

I have absolutely zero problems here. Fonts look beautiful here in KDE 
apps as well as non-KDE apps. Not sure what your problem is with 
regards to fonts.

> How can this be fixed so 
> anti aliasing looks better in KDE? I googled for an answer on this, I
> tried disabling “Hinting style”, but it doesn't make any difference.
>
> Mouse cursors
[ snip ]
Can't help here.

>
> Setting my Logitech Dual Optical to 800 cpi
>
> In Linux my Logitech Dual Optical Mouse is always defaulted to 400
> cpi, but it is capable of 800 cpi.

Hey, I have that mouse as well, but I never touched that cpi thingie :)

> I've always used this program - 
> http://freshmeat.net/projects/logitech_applet/ - to switch it to 800
> cpi. But I also noticed thisin the KDE Control Center -
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~vanlonen/kde_800cpi.png – so it seems that KDE
> can switch it to 800 cpi for me now, which is a useful feature.
> Unfortunately it won't work yet, as you can see.

What do I gain going from 400 to 800 cpi? Better aim in ET? :)

>
> Instability
>
> Kubuntu is so very unstable for me. I removed an MSN contact group in
> Kopete, and it immediately crashed. When I close Kaffeine when it's
> playing a video file, it crashes. Konqueror crashes when I go to
> trailers.apple.com and watch a trailer and press the back button.
> I've never had this with any other Linux distro.

I must also admit that my Kubuntu user experience hasn't been too stable 
(same goes for my girlfriend, and she is not happy. I get blamed, of 
course, since she was perfectly happy with Debian Sarge :) ). 

KDE 3.4.0 is probably to blame for most of the problems. I'm using KDE 
3.3.2 on Sarge and it is much, much more stable. With 3.4.0 on Kubuntu 
I regulary see crashes with Konqueror, KMail/Kontact and Amarok. 
Kaffeine will also bomb on me on exit (should be fixed in 
0.6-0ubuntu3).

>
> Kaffeine
>
> I followed the instructions mentioned in some forum posts, and
> extracted the codec pack essential-20050216.tar.bz2 to /usr/lib/win32
> so that I could use Kaffeine to watch windows media, real and
> quicktime streams. Now I can view the quicktime streams on
> trailers.apple.com, but when I try to view windows media streams, for
> example on this page –
> http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/archief/index.html (click on “(BB)”
> there) – Kaffeine says that there is “no plugin to handle this
> resource”

I can confirm this.

> (that happens with the windows media streams on that 
> website, but there also are real media streams which give the same
> result), and Konqueror crashes.

On Debian Sarge, Konqueror will crash on me like there was no tomorrow 
when I run Kaffeine embedded in Konqueror (e.g. wathcing a trailer or 
something). Haven't tested this much with Kubuntu.

> I've mentioned a lot of problems here, some are driving me so mad
> that there have been moments that I considered switching back to
> Ubuntu/GNOME, but I do appreciate Kubuntu. I just hope these bugs get
> fixed soon.

Unfortunately (unless I misunderstand how (K)ubuntu releases work), new 
upstream versions of programs (e.g. KDE 3.4.1) will not make it into 
Hoary (5.04). You'll have to wait 6 months for a new KDE, etc. This is 
a perfectly sane way to do it. I just personally wish the kubuntu devs 
could have waited for 3.4.1 to be out (.0-releases can be a bit shaky 
as is the case with KDE 3.4.0).

> BTW, is there any KDE bittorrent client available which can compare
> to Azureus? Or aren't there any serious alternatives available and am
> I forced to use Azureus?

Well, I'm using gnome-btdownload, atm. I tried qtorrent but it would not 
initiate downloads. Looking forward to a nice KDE bt client as well.

> I've searched a bit but I haven't found any 
> mature projects. One last thing, I noticed the useful Google search
> bar in Konqueror. Is it also possible to add search plugins for
> wikipedia, like it is possible in Firefox?

Don't know about that one.

Best regards,
-- 
Frederik Dannemare | http://sentinel.dk | http://linuxworlddomination.dk
http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=Frederik+Dannemare
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/FrederikDannemare
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